Water treatment blocks oil from seeping into Black River

Oil seeping from land spurs project

A new treatment system is blocking oil from rainwater from seeping into the Black River as part of the continuing effort to improve the Black River and the land around it.

The water treatment plant began operating Aug. 1 on the city-owned property known as the RTI site, between the operating steel mills of Republic Steel and U.S. Steel Corp., and the Black River.

That area sits north of East 28th Street in Lorain.

For several years, the city has received state and federal grant money to pay for the environmental cleanup and restoration of the 300-acre site. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. EPA all have assisted in the continuing project.

Much of the work has included removing steel mills scrap, planting native grasses and trees, and reshaping the river banks, according to city staff and consultants working on the projects.

The latest step is to add a treatment system that captures oil and balances the pH level of water that seeps through the ground and eventually trickles down from the land to Lorain’s main waterway.

The project is a $1.3 million project known as a “groundwater remediation system,” said Kathryn Golden, storm water manager for the city.

Golden traveled the site to explain the new system with Mark Wickline, the city’s site supervisor, and consultants Michael L. Watkins, associate and managing geologist of Brown and Caldwell, and Kristen Risch of ColdWater Consulting LLC.

The new treatment plant is the first of its kind in the RTI site.

It is not visible to the public and won’t be for the near future, but Lorain residents see the result in cleaner water and a better environment around the river, according to the city plans.

On a visit to the site Aug. 21, minnows in the Black River were visible a few feet from the bank, while a pair of ospreys circled overhead.

The treated water is pumped out periodically every day, up to 800 gallons a day.

That may not sound like much compared to the volume of water in the Black River. But if enough oil seeps through that it would cause a visible sheen on the surface of the river, officials said.

“That’s the old adage, ‘Dilution is the solution to pollution.’ And that’s not the case,” Golden said. “We know that because it doesn’t go away, it accumulates, any type of pollutant.”

“It would form a sheen on the river and that’s a Clean Water Act violation,” Risch said.